The New Year resolution

A new year is upon us. 2024 will ring in with the usual celebration of New Year fireworks and champagne. Collard greens and black-eyed peas will fill the dinner table as families celebrate the dawning of a new year. Engagements will happen, promises will be made, and resolutions will be set in the hearts and minds of many. 2023 will lapse into yesterday’s book of memories on social media as we turn a page in time.
The tradition of resolution comes with the ringing of the New Year. I have often set these personal resolutions —the promise of personal challenges, like exercising and losing those added holiday pounds. I have wanted to lose 20 pounds for some time, and most days, everything I do feels like exercise at 64. Nonetheless, personal challenges benefit the mind, body, and soul. These challenges can also carry significant benefits for the communities we live in.
I have found that making a resolution often sets me up for disappointment when I falter on my promise to do better. Why does one day’s vow set the tide for the following 364? What worked yesterday may not work today. My determination should be to begin refreshed every morning as I start my day, for each day is unique with its challenges.
If I failed yesterday, I should forgive my mistakes and allow a clean slate for the new day. Desmond Tutu said, “Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” Our Heavenly Father is a God of compassion. He scatters our sin as far as the East is from the West. He shows compassion for His children, removing our brokenness and healing us (Psalm 103:12-18). New beginnings start with the forgiveness of old endings. Our Father, who created new beginnings, also created forgiveness.
As we learn to forgive self-let us also learn to forgive others. It is impossible to have a new beginning when you fail to allow others to have theirs. There is a lot to be said about forgiveness of others that reflects on the forgiveness of self. When Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness, Jesus replied not seven times but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). The Apostle Paul writes to the Church of Colossians that we are to forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven us. How can we resolve for a New Year when we cannot forgive the year that has passed?
God set a rhythm for new beginnings in the creation story when He called the light day and the darkness night. There was evening and morning, the first day of creation, and He saw it was good. God carried the goodness forward and added to His creation, meeting the needs of each new day (Genesis 1). That should be our resolution: to bring the goodness of each day forward and let go of the unforgiveness that deters us and discourages another.
We could all use a new beginning — days when only goodness is brought forward and when forgiveness of self and others is left behind in the sea of forgetfulness, days where brokenness is turned into healing. Maybe a good New Year resolution would be to put one foot forward and not look back, looking to His Kingdom and not our failings, knowing that His compassion and faithfulness are new every morning.
Lamentations 3:22-24 Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.”

Cheryl Mixon-Cruce is Pastor of Ochlockonee Bay United Methodist Church and Sopchoppy United Methodist Church.

Editor: This is a repeat of a column that appeared in January 2024.